High up in the Canadian Rockies lies one of the greatest known records of life on Earth,
the Burgess Shale. Fossils of Burgess organisms have confounded previously held notions of
evolution and increased public interest in paleontology. The Burgess has also further
inspired a global movement to digitally model organisms and whole ecosystems. The
resulting convergence of Paleontology and the digital world is producing powerful
new tools and methods to piece together the story of life. Against the backdrop of
the Burgess Shale, this conference will consider the following provocative questions:

Humanity is perpetrating a mass extinction of life on Earth, while at the same
time creating new variants of living forms through habitat transformation,
genetic engineering and cloning. What does the future hold for Earth’s biota and
will we survive our own "great experiment" with the biosphere?

In our efforts to model biological processes in software, some claim that we
will initiate a "digital Cambrian explosion" of information-based life forms
inhabiting the Earth’s collective compute spaces. If this occurs, what forms
and direction will opportunistic digital biota take, and what will be the
consequences for humanity?

Events at the Conference

This unique four day event will be held from August 29th to September 1st
in the heart of the spectacular Canadian Rockies at the Banff Centre for
the Arts. Arrivals day is August 29th, with an opening keynote that evening.
The Trek to the Burgess Shale will take place on August 30th (weather permitting) with an alternate program
available. Conference workshops will be held on August 31st and September 1st with a closing
keynote on the evening of September 1st.

The Digital Burgess Conference will provide an interdisciplinary forum for
the exchange of ideas between natural scientists, computer scientists, and artists.
Discussions will be interspersed with presentations on evolution and demonstrations
of digital tools that model organisms and living systems. This conference will
provide an environment for the exploration of novel research and artistic directions.

Keynote Events (open to the public)

There will be opening and closing keynote presentations and receptions
in the evening of August 29th and September 1st which will be open
to the public. Seating is limited and priority will be given to conference
attendees and sponsoring organizations.

Conference workshops will
feature discussion and debate of key questions in evolution, mass extinction,
and hypotheses about digital ecosystems. Attendees will participate in
special demonstrations and hands-on virtual experiments involving
the latest digital tools for the study of evolution and modeling
of early biota. See more about the workshop contents in the
Detailed Conference Schedule.

Technology Showcase

The Banff Centre for the Arts has a well equipped computer facility which
will be used for demonstrations and hands-on experiences of various
environments used in support of research into evolution and natural science.

Some of the technologies to be showcased will include:

VRML 2.0 and Java as key tools in 3D modeling of organisms with embodied behavior,
VRML models of Burgess organisms

Tierra, a large scale networked digital ecosystem

Synthetic plants and their environments as represented by L-systems

Cellular Automata

Genetic Algorithms

Systems representing Flocking and Swarming behaviors

Digital fossil repositories, including recent fieldwork of universities
and local high schools

Other systems embodying principles from biology to be discussed may include: